Jonny Truman

Story (Untitled)

    News of the massacre, first pedalled out by the camp priest, reached the Colonel in his barracks on the outskirts of the town at dusk. The night business of the small metropolis had begun and the unlit roads flowed with children of every age. The evening prickled with talk of the killings. At a floodlit garden table where insects dropped from overhanging wires, the official negotiating team sought the advice of a former rebel leader. After praying with the priest in his bare cathedral, the Archbishop removed his reading glasses and rubbed his face against his hands. The Administrator, wily and exuberant, was the first to call the President.

    Sometime after the news arrived, a young officer brought the Archbishop, flinching under driving rain to the Colonel’s office.
    “Such an honour, father” he said as the Archbishop sat down to face him. “I thought you were too busy trying to speak with terrorists to talk to those who keep you safe.”
    “We do what we can, Colonel, in our different ways…” began the Archbishop. He had brought the scent of rain with him into the office.
    “My men risk their lives, and you spread rumours against them, and talk to those that slash them.” The Colonel drove his words forward into one another. His thick fatigues were exemplary and his scalp gleamed, shaved smooth since his hair had started to recede.
    The Archbishop rested the fingertips of his tiny hands together. “You have children chasing children through the bush, boys in sandals and rattling with fear. These latest events show you cannot protect the camps. And as for the rumours, Colonel, the allegations are persistent, everyone knows what goes on.”
    “Collaboration, father is what goes on, whispering while we sacrifice ourselves.” His voice reached its parade-ground pitch. “I have more men and the rebels are desperate. You, with, the people will thank us when we are done.” He pulled an order for troop deployment from the President’s office before him and broke away from the Archbishop’s gaze. At that moment, the generator coughed and stopped and the lights went out. In the sweet darkening of the African night with its raw whine gone, the rain strengthened and hit its truest note. Cold-blooded things took possession of the evening, frogs exultant, firing upwards from the pools, soft clusters of mosquitoes, long-winged ants, and ponderous hard-shelled bugs.

The following morning, a convoy crawled the red road drawn like a crayon line through the bush. The sky was grey with spongy clouds. In one car, sat the Colonel and his officers and in the others, leaders and administrators. Once, by the road, there had been villages where rows of maize had breached the tended earth. Since the people had been moved into the camps the bush had wrapped the homesteads and gently, with many tendrils, retaken the fields. Now the Colonel gazed at a flat land, its silence broken only by a few camp dwellers, urging bikes around the potholes, and glancing from side to side. The mobile phone signals slipped away and they passed through camps where, between huts squeezed together, children squatted.

    When they reached the camp, the sky was blue, with shreds of cloud. First the Colonel climbed down from his jeep with a swift step. Next came the Administrator, towering over the Colonel with a fresh shirt strained outwards by the soft balloon of his gut. He ignored the Colonel and moved towards the small crowd which was gathering. Then came the Councillor, limping, with grey sideburns and heavy glasses and, finally, the young police chief with his pale blue shirt and epaulettes. As the story of the massacre began, they listened with heads bowed, moving towards the centre of the camp with measured steps.

    The camp was a hive of round windowless huts, packed close together, many blackened by fire. They passed down a narrow track between blocks of huts. A teenage girl, her head shaved and a baby held in a frayed grey cloth to her back bent over a small pyramid of yellow mangoes.
    “Why are we strolling here?” demanded the Colonel. “We came to address the people.” As a camp resident began nervously to explain to him, a group of men, red eyed, teetered into him, and with his laced paramilitary boot, the Colonel stepped into a pile of tiny fishes, like silver scrapings at the edge of the track. As the Colonel brushed the tiny fishes from his boot, the rest of the delegation moved ahead without him. A small crowd adhered to him, and a rush of words came towards him. “They came right into the camp, slashing, children with pangas and eyes rolling, I saw them cutting…….” “They took children away with them into the bush” “They say we lost thirty people, bodies are still not found for them.” “They cut the lips off a woman.” A woman wailed sharply. Another woman, older, ageless it seemed to the Colonel, stepped towards him, wearing a loose worn dress. He thought of the scent of the soap his young girlfriend near the barracks used, as he saw her untidy greying braids. “There were no soldiers when they came. Where was your detachment?” she said. “Where were they?”
    The Colonel addressed her with a rapid emphasis, and a glare from his prominent eyes. “My men are chasing these rebels in the bush. You waste their time by going out of the camp when the regulations prevent it. This is the problem.” He pushed through the crowd, and strode on towards the centre of the camp, removing his khaki cap to wipe the sweat from his scalp.

    Things moved slowly. Minor officials moved the delegation to a wooden table and chairs set up beneath an enormous spreading tree. People drew in from surrounding huts and the tracks that converged at the tree. A great solid circle, an amphitheatre of bodies drew together around a cleared space under the tree. The Colonel avoided looking at the leanness of the people. He watched a small child, his stomach distended like a low hill with a fat umbilical protrusion. The child had shorts ripped to show both buttocks and his eyes seemed to fire with an adult rage.

    A junior official took a megaphone and began to address the crowd, striding around the cleared space. He introduced the officials and the Colonel, swinging towards each one as he gave their titles to the crowd. The Councillor stepped forward to take the megaphone and to lead a prayer for those killed. Necks bent down, and thoughts resolved upon the dead. The Colonel, with seat cooling in the stiff corners of his uniform bowed his head and kept his eyes open glancing around. Silence rested like a mantle on the crowd.

    The Councillor shook off the mode of prayer and began to stride stiffly around the circle of the crowd. “God,” he shouted and the megaphone squeaked, “will reward you for your patience. When we put down rebellion in the east, the people fought with us and we won.” He spoke loudly for some time about the battles he had led, and many in the crowd began to look away. “With my new communal farming scheme, supported by the Ministry of the North, you will all be fed and find work.” The junior official quietened three grey haired men talking near the edge of the crowd. The people were stony faced, and the Councillor, in confusion, returned to his seat. The Colonel shook his head and leaned back in his seat.

    The police chief, newly promoted, with his hat correctly seated and an open, pleasant face, stepped forward to speak. He coughed to clear his throat and took the megaphone, glancing round the crowd. “My people, it has been a long time. But the enemy will be defeated.” He moved on with another cough. “With my new scheme approved by the Ministry of the Interior, there will be police in every camp.” There was silence. He continued. “The drinking and fornicating that goes on in these camps is the reason why we have so many problems,” he announced. “This drinking must stop.” And he continued, “There are collaborators among you. These people talk to the rebels and tell them where to find you and attack you.” A sound as feint as dusk came from the crowd. It had a low, enormous resonance. Few had noticed the gathering clouds, and those on the outer circle beyond the canopy were surprised by a wind-blown rush of heavy drops. The noise from the crowd increased.

    Into the murmuring stepped the Administrator, wrapping his large and fleshy hand around the megaphone. The Colonel moved restlessly in his chair and leant his elbows down on his spread knees. “You chose me to bring you peace,” said the Administrator, smiling at the crowd, “and I think you know the reasons why you are suffer. You have been abandoned by the world. Why do you think there are blue hats in Sudan? Because they have oil.” He strode rapidly, speaking with great fluency, and his belly juddered as he moved.

    “For three years you keep us here and tell us this,” said one of the grey-haired men. “Three years!” Voices from the crowd spoke in agreement     “Grandfather,” said the Administrator, “I understand your pain. We plan to end this war. I have been chosen by the President to head a new peace committee.” The Colonel suppressed an exclamation. The crowd continued to shift and stir.
    “Bring us the food you promised us last time,” said one of the grey haired men, “and talk to us about peace then!”
    “You must blame the army.” The Colonel removed his cap and crushed it. “They promised you more men and none came.” The crowd sustained its low murmur of discontent. It was wordless, and had no sibilance, but carried a charge like the air before thunder. The Administrator sat down and busied himself with the buttons of his mobile phone.

    The Colonel, with a glance down at the Administrator, took the megaphone, and stepped into the murmur of the crowd. He moved to the centre of the circle. He fixed his gaze on a group of women. “My sisters,” he told them, “I understand your loss.” He looked into the eyes of one of the women. He moved around the circle with his head bowed down, and then addressed another group of women. “I understand how you suffer. I am from this region.” He turned away from them and addressed the back of the crowd. “For many years we have protected you. Remember who it is who attacked you. I am going to tell you how we will make you safe. Those of you who are young, and fit, will take weapons from us and protect the camp. You will fight with us, and destroy those who have done these things to you” The tone of the murmur shifted like the tide and words began to jostle in it. He felt their consent. “Yes, fight!” said one of the grey-haired men. A group of young men spoke together excitedly. “Come with me now and give your names, those of you who will join us.” Teenagers, barefoot, and men began to draw towards him, and he sat down behind the table with the other officials.

    Suddenly the woman who had spoken to him earlier stepped forwards and stood before the table. A baby was now bound tightly and silently to her back. “What have you done for us?” she said “Where were your soldiers when the rebels came? Where were they drinking when they came?” She moved from foot to foot as she spoke as if the ground was unbearably hot. “We live like animals here. For three years. And you ask us to stay and fight.” Her body twisted. She stamped with each uttering, and the baby bobbed wide eyed behind her. “We stay here waiting, and nothing comes. We have no medicine, the water runs out, the food never comes. Do you see this child? He is an orphan, left by the rebels. I am an old woman and I try to raise him. And your soldiers, they take girls in the bush when they go for food and force them, hold them on the ground! And now you want the young people to go out and die for you.”

    “Shame on you, sister,” said the Colonel, “for speaking of such things, enough of this, speaking against those who try to protect you.” He was sweating heavily, and drops pooled on his forehead.

    “Shame on you. Shame on you. You come here now, and speak, when you leave us here to die. We will not stay in this camp. We will leave.” She continued, and paused briefly, swallowing with difficulty as if her throat was in pain. The force found her again, and she scolded the officials who sat in silence behind the table, driving her foot into the ground as she spoke. The crowd was moving, pressing in around them. A tall young man standing close to him shouted, “Our sister is right. All your soldiers do is drink.” The Colonel held the megaphone in a wet hand. “You must stop this, or I will have to call my soldiers.” He looked around. The other officials were discussing together and gesturing. The truck of soldiers had disappeared. He reached for his radio. “Shoot us, and we wouldn’t care!” said the tall young man, and flecks of spit landed on the Colonel. The crowd was surging towards the officials.

    From the corner of his eye, the Colonel saw another car arrive. The Archbishop, his glasses gleaming, his soft chin wobbling, and protruding teeth, hurried towards the crowd. With a young attendant he pushed through the mass of people. “Father,” said the woman, turning towards the Archbishop, “we have told this Colonel that we will not stay here anymore, and we will take revenge.” But her voice was falling, and members of the crowd now looked round at each other in doubt. “Father,” she said, “even the Lord cannot raise me up. I will go into the bush and see what comes.” She unwound the baby from her back and sat it on the ground, where it began to cry. She strode off but stopped on the edge of the clearing and stood with an abstracted gaze.

    “Sister, come back, maybe some of what you say is true,” called out the Colonel, and he turned to the Archbishop. He stepped towards him. In his mind, he saw the young shopkeeper captured by his military intelligence division, weeping in his cell after days of beating. “Father, my superiors are busy with their villas, and their procurements…. They give me no more men.” He spoke in an urgent quiet voice. “I saw them too, this morning in the hospital, the people from the camp.” The Archbishop had knelt to stroke the head of one of the children, and did not hear him. The Colonel turned away and, pulling his tunic straight, walked back towards his jeep, and was driven away.

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Biography

Jonny Truman lives in SE London and work on human rights issues overseas.